By Michael Howard

January 26, 2026

When Tyler Tafolla talks about Dead Moose – the new dark comedy musical currently playing at Oceanside’s Sunshine Brooks Theater – he does so with the aura of someone who has already made peace with uncertainty. That, um, certainly feels appropriate, given that uncertainty—about death, faith, destiny, and control—is precisely what the show is about.

“I’m looking forward to the show being a safe space for people to start thinking about those things or being a safe space for people who never had that to begin with,” Tafolla shared with Vanguard Culture the day before the show opened January 24th. 

Dead Moose centers on Job, an 18-year-old who survives a near-fatal car accident involving a moose. When he returns home from the hospital, his family has mounted the taxidermied moose head—the same animal he collided with—on the wall as a “welcome home” gift. They tell him, ‘This can be your own little guardian angel now,’” Tafolla explains. 

From there, the moose begins speaking to Job, guiding him through a series of memories – Christmas Past style- as he wrestles with a question that refuses to leave him alone: “Why did I survive?”

“At the top of the show,” Tafolla explains, “Job is trying to figure out whether his survival was part of a bigger, higher plan, or was it just random.” 

The moose becomes a theatrical device and philosophical guide, leading him – and the audience –  through questions of life, religion, death, faith, and what comes after all of this when we die.

The cast delivered a heartfelt and enduring performance on opening night, overcoming small technical glitches of sound feedback and near miss accidents (like a chair slipping during the second to last musical number) with professionalism and talent befit the pedigree of the Oceanside Theatre Company at the Brooks. 

Salima Gangani, playing Job’s sister Joy, was powerfully soulful when belting out the musical number An Unanswered Prayer, accentuating several verses with tell-tale facial flinches of pain and remembrance of past trauma. Newcomer to the company Audrey Deubig was equally convincing in her neurotic portrayal of Candy when serenading Happily to Job; her dancing between a Christian single on a date to an avid and rabid right-wing sycophant was deeply entertaining. Rounding out the female cast, Lyric Boothe’s performance of Job’s love interest Mabel was moving and authentic, evoking the teenage angst and self-righteous anger of only one who herself surely must have journeyed down a similar path, most notable in her solo The Sun.

Joshua Powers, playing Job’s brother-in-law Hank, commanded the stage during scenes where he portrayed the role as an overbearing and alarmingly sexist nuisance to Job, and equally emotional in his dual role as the father of the character Mabel. The dead moose, played by company newcomer Chase Lowary, enveloped moments of profound silences, carrying weight and gravitas superbly with just a look while guiding Job through his existential musings. Lead actor Danny Homes playing Job was a casting home run with his range of emotions laid bare during moments of joy, laughter, pain and confusion alike. Moments of uncertainty were marked by a nervous pulling back of the hair along his temple, while confusion and frustration cracked his vocals during song and lines. 

However, it wasn’t the individual performances that stole the show. The entire ensemble must be recognized for its 90-minute, one-act performance with only three weeks’ preparation. Tafolla credits the cast – many longtime fixtures of the San Diego theater community – for rising to the challenge. “The fact that they have been able to bring so much to these characters in that short amount of time just speaks to their abilities,” he says. 

Music plays a crucial role in anchoring the show. Tafolla describes it with a familiar musical-theater maxim: “When the emotions are so high that you can’t talk anymore, you have to sing,” he relates. 

The score borrows stylistically from the early-2000s soundscape—Regina Spektor, indie folk, acoustic guitar, and Christian contemporary music. But the goal isn’t parody. “I didn’t want to poke fun of it,” Tafolla says of Christian culture. “I wanted to pay homage to it, almost like a love letter to that upbringing.” 

The music, like the script, holds the hurt and the healing at the same time. Tafolla draws an unexpected parallel between theater and church—not ideologically, but communally. Both, he argues, are spaces where people gather, listen, reflect, and search for meaning together. “It is a spiritual thing,” he says, “that helps you understand a little bit more about yourself when you’re a part of it.”

For audiences, his request is simple: come in open. Some material may be triggering. Some memories may sting. “That is okay,” he says, “Dead Moose isn’t there to resolve those feelings, only to make room for them.”

After ten years of false starts and quiet persistence, Tafolla knows this opening is just one moment. “An audience only sees that one hour and a half,” he says, “and they don’t see the 10 plus years of work that took you to get to this point.” 

Still, for a show about learning to live with unanswered questions, Dead Moose arrives with one certainty intact: the story is finally being told.

Dead Moose
A Co-Production with Tafolla Productions
JANUARY 24 – FEBRUARY 1, 2026
BOOK, MUSIC, AND LYRICS BY TYLER TAFOLLA